


It's Easier to Start a War Than to End One

by senshinkan



Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Banter, Flashbacks, Joui War, Jouishishi - Freeform, Kidnapping, M/M, Sad Gintoki, Yamazaki's surveillance reports, Yorozuya Family, Yoshida Shouyou (mentioned) - Freeform, politics at play
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25155796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senshinkan/pseuds/senshinkan
Summary: But it would be so hard to fill his blank eyes with life afterwards. It would be so hard to keep himself from crying out in his sleep, scared that one day he’d see a crying little kid who’d tell him that the Shiroyasha had killed his father years ago, scared that the souls he took would come to avenge themselves.Someone tries to rekindle the flames of the Joui War by reawakening the Shiroyasha, and Gintoki is sick and tired of people pretending to know what war entails.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 16
Kudos: 97





	It's Easier to Start a War Than to End One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This fanfic is going to be a long one with a few political affiliations. I hope it works out well :) I'm planning to update regularly but we'll see. I really want to explore the idea of an over-eager terrorist trying to rekindle the war by tracking the Joui 3 out, and that's going to be the main idea of this fanfic. The Hijikata/Gintoki pairing will be more visible in later chapters :)

It was a lazing around day in Odd Jobs as usual – it had become too common for comfort, to be honest, they needed money for food after all – and Gintoki was looking at the street below with his JUMP in hand, absentmindedly picking at his nose. Kagura was reading a shoujo manga she had bought for Soyo, and Shinpachi was – sneezing, actually.

“Gin-san! You promised to get napkins yesterday!” He fumed around. “Why is it that you always have money for pachinko but not for actual necessities? You want me to wipe my nose into one of your yukatas?”

Gintoki was on his feet in a second, pointing at Shinpachi with wide eyes: “Oi, you’d better not do anything to my clothes with that disgusting nose of yours! I’ll wipe my own nose on your Otsu-chan pillow if you do!”

Shinpachi fixed his glasses with trembling hands, “What did you say, Gin-san? How could you do that to Otsu-chan, who is so otherworldly that she does not know what snot is?”

Kagura sighed dramatically and put her manga down, cracking her knuckles.

Gintoki and Shinpachi turned white instantly. “Oh you want napkins Shinpachi-kuun? Why didn’t you say so before? I’ll get them in a second!” Gin said running into the entryway but Shinpachi blocked his way, trying to get out first. “Oh you don’t need to, Gin-san, I’ll get them myself! You can _just stay_ _here._ ” he gritted out.

Kagura was having none of it, and kicked both of them in the ass, causing the duo to fly a few meters and grunt in pain with smoking backsides. “Ungrateful bastards! What did mama tell you about getting along, uh-huh? Are you as dumb as the boy in To-Love-Ru who cheated on Lala-chan? Are you?”

“No one cheated on her, you damn brat! Your idea of cheating is someone eating her food anyway” Gintoki grunted as he held his precious butt. “I’ll buy the damn napkins. Just make dinner, Shinpachi.” He said as he got up, rummaging through his closet to find a few yen. He slipped out of the room just as Kagura kicked a packet of dog food into Shinpachi’s head, trying to convince him to make eggs on rice again.

The last rays of the sun shone on his back, and the liveliness of Kabukicho surprised him pleasantly for the umpteenth time in ten years. The chaos of this town had been the cure for him when he came here dragging his feet through the snow. Kabukicho never slept, never quieted down, and it kept him company in the months right after the war; when he was unable to sleep properly as the visions of a rolling head and blood stains interrupted his sleep, his voice always hoarse from screaming.

His thoughts wandered in the afternoon breeze, and the probability of repressing them with pachinko vanished as a familiar rice field entered his vision.

*

Gintoki still remembered the worst moments of the war.

When the rain was harsh against their backs, the taste of blood prominent in their mouths, their surroundings full of Amanto who never, never stopped coming no matter how many were cut down. A nightmare filling their reality, thoughts of hopelessness crossing their minds more than they’d like to admit.

He also remembered the chains snapping in his mind.

He remembered how he stopped thinking altogether, throwing himself on every sword and not caring whether or not he successfully deflected it as long as he got through to its owner. He remembered the darkness filling him like an old friend, the putrid taste of hatred far down his throat, not against the Amanto nor the Bakufu but against the war. He always felt sick to his stomach right before he snapped; tired of how much thought he put into defense, tired of carefully approaching the enemy as to not get overwhelmed, tired of thinking about where Zura and the others were, tired of Shouyou’s constant presence in the back of his mind.

The first time he went off on a spree, no one was there when he dropped his sword. It was like swimming too far in an ocean, corpses carrying him to soon-to-be-corpses at the end of his sword. The sound of clashing metal was a song to his ears as he slashed down everyone who was making him worry about the lives of his idiot classmates, everyone who might have hurt Shouyou sensei in one way or another, everyone who was putting a 16-year-old in this small bubble in a battlefield where waves of blood were constantly threatening to swallow him. He turned into a puddle of blood himself, red in his clothes and pure black in his mind. He bared his fangs as he drove his sword into Amanto, and let himself get lost in the _thrill_ of mortal danger, in the ease of abandoning defense altogether. When there was no more Amanto to be killed, he would look around with his body numb, and his legs would mechanically carry him to wherever the Joui was camping for the night. Simply fighting for _survival_ was comfortable; no visions of stones flying towards a small white-haired demon and no memory of gentle hands petting his head in the midst of dead bodies. He turned into a beast then, relying on instinct and pure strength; and he supposed that’s what he was meant to be from the start. He had never been good at book-smarts, had never been in touch with his feelings. All Gintoki could do was to swing his sword, and he’d be proud of himself for a second after his brutal episodes; because he drove them out, he made sure no one got close to the only friends he had ever had, he wouldn’t have to suffer through more guilt, the gap in his heart wouldn’t get bigger.

But it would be so hard to fill his blank eyes with life afterwards. It would be so hard to keep himself from crying out in his sleep, scared that one day he’d see a crying little kid who’d tell him that the _Shiroyasha_ had killed his father years ago, scared that the souls he took would come to avenge themselves. He had actually been scared of ghosts ever since he was little; he would imagine ghosts of soldiers chasing him for the dried out rice balls and coins he stole from them, he would imagine them catching up with him. However, the ghosts of the war were more real. They had instilled a guilt in him that stained his soul deeply, and he was sure it would never turn white again, so he stopped trying altogether. This didn’t stop Zura from trying to include him in strategy meetings with worry in his eyes and Sakamoto from forcing a laugh while trying to get him to drink sake. Takasugi wouldn’t do anything but stare. That was the only time Gintoki was grateful to Takasugi, not that he’d ever mention it to the bastard.

_____

Gintoki had been in such a haze when he stumbled into Kabukicho with bleeding feet and water still in his lungs. The first night, he got up from his spot in an alley in the dusk and wandered around with blank eyes until he saw an empty field on the outskirts of the town. The night was slowly settling in, and street lights had begun to turn on to illuminate the empty streets.

He walked quietly to the field he saw. His tattered shoes drowning in mud, he stepped through the weeds and stopped in the middle of the crops. He absentmindedly fell onto his knees between the overgrown rice straws. Everything washed over him at once: his classmates dying one by one, Shouyou’s hands bound behind his back, Takasugi’s eye, Tatsuma leaving Earth, Zura clinging onto some fever dream of the past. The air felt suddenly still. He clutched his sword in an attempt to keep sane; drew it out; and mindlessly swung it around once –

He hit the rice straws but only felt the weight of Shouyou’s neck on the tip of his sword, and bile rose up in his throat.

The sword was still twitching in the air, and Gintoki was sure that it was his imagination only, but the resistance on his sword never went away. Everyone he killed, Amanto and humans alike, surrounded his sword; it was stuck in the air and wouldn’t move. They were all begging him not to kill them, begging the Shiroyasha to come to their aid, their voices digging into his head; the rice straws he cut shining gold like sensei’s hair and the wind as warm as sensei. Ghosts of the past he was desperately running from had finally caught up to him. Not like it was unexpected, but it still left him with a lump in his throat. Gintoki closed his eyes and Shouyou stayed burnt at the back of his eyelids, gently sweeping his curls away from his wide eyes in a battlefield surrounded by crows and death; offering him his hand with the same smile he would have when Gintoki staggered towards him with a sword in his trembling hands.

“Thank you.” The wind whispered in his ear.

Gintoki screamed and screamed until he couldn’t anymore.

*

Gintoki’s eyes trailed away from the rice field. He stuck his finger in his nose trying to swat away the sudden hoarseness in his throat and looked around to see the usual dango shop with the ever-annoying vice commander of the Shinsengumi standing in front of it with a patrol car parked nearby. He slowly made his way to the entrance of the shop, relishing in the way Hijikata’s face looked more and more furious as Gintoki got closer.

“I hope you don’t plan to make me pay for your dango again, bastard. How did you put twenty-seven sticks of dango on my tab without me noticing, damn it??? Go get a job this instant and pay me back. I’m not paying this time.”

“Do you only see me as a freeloader, Hijikata-kuuun? I am only here to buy some napkins from the shop next door, but I’m sure you’re used to the Joui wiping their noses with the Shinsengumi. Could you be so kind as to follow me home and help me save my money for pachinko instead?”

Hijikata was fuming.

“You no-good bastard! You don’t think I can arrest you right here and now for being a fucking Joui patriot?? I bet I can get testimonies from ten veterans in Edo alone. There are no parfaits in jail, I’ll have you know.”

“There’s pudding, Oogushi-kun. Not that you government dogs would know.” Gintoki scoffed. “I’ll be going to the store, then. I hope God blesses you with less tax money next time so that you can see the struggles of us common folk. See ya.” He gave a forced smirk at the riled-up Hijikata shouting curses behind him and made his way to the Oedo store with shoulders sagging more than usual.

“That bastard, I swear I’ll arrest him the next time he has a drinking contest with Katsura.” Hijikata murmured in anger, lighting his cigarette. There had been something wrong with the Yorozuya judging by the way he delivered insults flatly, and a dangerous glint danced in his eyes; but it wasn’t Hijikata's business anyway.

He took a long drag from his Mayoboro, and hastily took the report on a new Joui faction out of Yamazaki’s hands.

He hoped maybe one page out of twenty would actually be about the faction.

_Yamazaki Sagaru’s Surveillance Report on the New Joui Faction in West Kabukicho_

_I have been observing the 15 th Street for 22 days. Some shady men whom I saw with Joui suspects in the past dressed in the same type of hakama have been going up to people and treating them to drinks, trying to gauge their views of the government by making small talk. I counted six of these suspicious people. They stay on the street throughout the day, from about 13 pm to 10 pm. I tried to follow them but they go into different alleys every day and I always lose their trace. I don’t want to follow them too far as to not blow my cover - I visit the bars frequently to watch them work. I have also observed their lunchtimes and the people they contacted, and I am fairly certain that I can figure out their identities with a brand-new method tried and perfected during many stakeouts. Using a study by Edo Astrology Foundation on the effect of astrological signs on the choice of food, I devised a method to find their birthdays by analyzing their choice of ramen toppings and the noodle type they choose; which will narrow the suspects down to a third of the population of Kabukicho (<3000 people). Below you will find a table of their lunches in order of thicker to thinner noodles. I have also included a table of every anpan I have eaten in the duration of the stakeout, judged according to:_

  1. _Mouthfeel_
  2. _Filling quality_
  3. _Filling color*_
  4. _Dough consistency_
  5. _Sugar level_



_(…)_

A note in the bottom read:

_*Please disregard the smears on pages 10 to 18 as they might misrepresent the actual color of the anpan, and stick to the color gradient shown on page 8._

Hijikata took out the first page and tore the remaining 19 pages with a popping vein on his forehead.

This was going to be a tough night.

_____

“One more, oji-sannnn. Pretty pleeease.” Gintoki slurred at the old man behind the counter. The oden stand was emptier than usual, which was great because he didn’t want to drink with Hasegawa this time. Waking up awkwardly tangled up with him in an alley was becoming more frequent than he’d like to admit.

“No more, Samurai-san. You’re already drunk and my bones are too brittle to carry you off.”

“You’re such a party pooper, old man.” Gintoki sighed with discontent and got up from his chair. He sauntered through the streets after biding the old man a disgruntled “good night”, searching for an open bar. The hour was too late, he noticed with disappointment. The moon shined through the street as he staggered to the park to sit out some of his drunkenness before he returned to the Yorozuya. He sat on the bench and sighed, looking up at the stars. _Are you there, Tatsuma?_ He thought for a fleeting moment before cursing himself for being too damn cheesy and settling for trying to find a strawberry-shaped constellation.

“Want a pint?” His eyes shot up warily, relaxing when he saw one of the homeless bums who lived in the park. “Only one… Himuro-san?” “It’s Hibuchi, Yorozuya-san” the middle-aged man protested. “I don’t find sake often, so take a shot. It’s on me.” “It’s not like you paid for this, but thanks.” Gintoki grumbled as he downed the sake in one go. “How cheap is this shit, huh? Tastes like soap,” he declared with a frown. “You can have the rest, Yorozuya-san. I’ll be going.” “Don’t you live here, idiot?” Gintoki slurred, even though he didn’t feel that drunk. Hadn’t he sobered up a bit a few minutes ago? He was feeling thirstier than usual.

“Himuro-san, have you seen Hasegawa around?”

“Himuro-san?”

Gintoki tried to stand up, but his legs shook violently as he stood. A weight settled above his eyelids, forcing them to close as he fought to keep them open. He’d seen this type of thing before. The park swayed and lagged beneath his feet, and he took a trembling step only to fall to the ground on his back. _My head_ , he cursed inwardly as he looked up. A shadow approached him, looming in the darkness as clouds blocked the moon. He tried to pay attention, but it was a pain in the ass to stay awake.

 _I hope I don’t miss Ketsuno Ana’s forecast tomorrow_ , Gintoki thought, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> hey! I hope you enjoyed this one. This is my first multiple-chapter fanfic and I'm kinda excited about that and criticism is more than welcome :))


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